The Hunter of the Other World Who Is Being Misunderstood

Crack.

Hmm... but wait a second. I have a feeling this really isn't the time to be daydreaming.

'Don't tell me that Earthling is planning to activate [Improvement] right here?'

At first, I'd thought he'd check briefly and leave it at that. But even as time passed, Kang Changho still refused to let go of my throat.

'So that wasn't it.'

But just as a wave of anxious suspicion surged through me and I began to fear I might actually suffer brain damage, the mammal finally stopped of his own accord. My neck was free again.

'Kaagh.'

'That's strange...'

Kang Changho muttered to himself as though he couldn't understand the result. But considering I was the one being unilaterally beaten, why should I bother correcting him?

'I expected that if I interfered with your skill use this much, at least the [Judgment] attached to Justitia would activate.'

'Ahem.'

'The scales still haven't tipped. The [Judgment] function remains completely silent. So does that mean Hunter Kim Gryeo really has been answering with nothing but the truth...?'

Tuk.

Kang Changho set the magical tool he had been holding down on the floor. As he rested a hand against his chin and sank into thought, I barely managed to collect myself after the pressure on my neck had left the back of my head throbbing, then immediately tried to steer us into a new conversation.

'Now it's clear. He isn't certain either.'

In other words, the most important thing right now was to make it absolutely clear that I wasn't a Gisimche.

'He's pushed me this far without actually snapping my cervical spine and killing me... Kang Changho himself still isn't certain what the truth is. If I can just convince him that I'm one of the same kind, this whole situation might change!'

I cleared my throat and spoke.

'I don't know what you're trying to verify with all this, but even if I can withstand Justitia's [Judgment], I don't have any innate active skills or anything of the sort, so there's absolutely nothing else I can do. Besides, I've told you several times already—I'm not connected to the Dungeon Shock at all. If anything, I'm one of the modern humans who suffered because of that disaster.'

'I'm not some government agent like those rumors on the internet claim, either. I'm just an ordinary twenty-five-year-old citizen from Mapo District. So why are you trying to pin something this grandiose on me?'

'Please don't do this. We're on the same side.'

Blood began to trickle once more from the place where the blue nail had been driven in. With the wound on my neck still raw from the recent friction, I did my best to explain myself to my aggressor. After all, I truly had nothing to do with the Gate disaster. I pleaded with him not to misunderstand and, for the time being, to regard me as human.

As an unintended bonus, the small hole in my neck made my voice come out hoarse and pitiful.

'...Are you this angry because I deceived you last time? Have you really... decided to kill me now?'

But strangely enough, not a single muscle in his face changed from its usual position.

Sharply furrowing one's brows into an 'S' shape, or squeezing clear fluid from bloodshot eyes—Earthlings had all sorts of methods for appealing to human sympathy.

But I used none of those additional expressions. I simply continued my argument in a dry, straightforward manner. Looking back, the acting strategy I'd used before hadn't received a particularly favorable response from a certain Association employee.

'Come to think of it, this is something I noticed instinctively while talking with Earthlings. Seonwoo Yeon seemed to sympathize more with what I said than with whatever expression I made. Even when I tried moving my facial muscles, that employee would only crane her neck and widen her eyes at me.'

No matter how naturally I tried to smile, this blond body had an uncanny tendency to make people uneasy.

Having lived a rather long life—albeit somewhat unwillingly—I, an archmage, had eventually come to recognize certain patterns.

I suspected that the public image of 'Kim Gryeo' had already become firmly established as that of an extremely stoic person. If I suddenly started behaving out of character, it would only invite further suspicion.

For that reason, I sealed away all use of facial expressions and chose to make my move with words alone.

'I'm sorry.'

It wounded my pride a little, but if apologizing aloud would help me survive this desperate crisis, then I had no choice.

'Looking back, I really did deceive you... I-I suppose I was thoughtless... I want to make amends. I'll make a skill stone for Hunter Kang. No matter how you look at it, making a deal has to be better than murder, doesn't it...?'

A skill stone, huh.

At my words, Kang Changho raised one eyebrow slightly.

After a brief pause, the answer that came from him was half expected and half entirely predictable.

'Admitting your own mistake so readily makes you seem remarkably mature. I almost feel like I should learn from you myself. But forgive me for interrupting your repentance, Hunter Kim—where exactly do you keep getting information like that?'

'...You mean about crafting skill stones?'

'Mhm.'

'Well... when you explore dungeons... you run into all sorts of things. Whether you want to or not, you end up picking up information.'

'Dungeons?'

'Y-yes.'

'But according to the system, you didn't have any noteworthy dungeon records until last summer.'

He brought up a hunter's system records with remarkable ease for someone who wasn't even an Association employee.

But I'd anticipated this sort of exchange well in advance.

Even without Seonwoo Yeon's testimony, his past stalking had already proven that this S-rank man had enjoyed fairly unrestricted access to government data for quite some time.

'...That's obviously because I neglected to report them.'

I consciously manipulated my vocal cords and forced the words out.

Straining my injured throat produced a faint but persistent discomfort, hovering just below the threshold of actual pain. The voice of this altered body, battered by one injury after another, now sounded depressingly inadequate.

But this was hardly the time to complain about the quality of my voice.

Without flinching, I continued my explanation, offering my own justification for why this body had almost no registered dungeon records.

'Hmm. Ahem! Anyway, hunters exploring dungeons... isn't inherently a bad thing. As long as they aren't harming other people, like those who commit theft or similar crimes, is there really any need to report every single movement to the authorities?'

'Hmm.'

'If you'd heard about my attitude toward the organization back when the inevitable Malice appeared, you'd probably understand why I avoided properly registering my awakening...'

'Oh, you mean back when Chairman Go was in charge?'

'I'm not an anarchist, though.'

Wait a minute.

This was coming from someone who had ignored the Association's orders so thoroughly that his hunter ranking had fallen to somewhere around the thousand mark—and he was claiming he wasn't an anarchist?

'So his ranking dropped that far because of nothing more than ordinary rebelliousness?'

My eyes widened slightly as I glanced at him.

Although I was in the middle of inventing a completely false excuse, that particular reaction was genuine.

Seeing it, Kang Changho responded with a casual shrug and a smile.

But the relaxed atmosphere didn't last.

'Like I just said, I may be the sort of person who gets misunderstood easily, but I'm really not that antisocial. So don't judge me too harshly. Anyway, I've listened carefully to your position, Hunter Kim.'

'_ _'

'But if we accept your explanation, doesn't that only create even more questions? Even assuming you were hostile toward the Association, there are still too many inconsistencies.'

'What... are you talking about?'

'A rat who was registered as F-rank because he was hostile toward the Association and lived while keeping himself hidden. On top of that, someone who suffered a serious injury and went on living with no hope of ever recovering.'

Why did someone like that step forward to hunt the inevitable Malice?

It wasn't only the Imogi War that seemed strange.

A patient willing to risk his body deteriorating further simply to escape pain, yet still participating in the Vent Dragon raid.

Whenever a dungeon break like the Thornbush Forest occurred, he was among the first to rush to the scene.

Kang Changho pointed out that the fourth S-rank hunter's actions were riddled with contradictions—far too many to dismiss with a simple claim of justice or altruism.

According to his argument, if someone had once had his insides crushed during a battle with some unknown creature, then pretending to be F-rank and keeping a low profile would certainly make sense.

But considering the trauma and PTSD such an experience should have caused, taking such an excessive interest in abnormal phenomena was strange.

Almost unnatural.

In the process of repairing the greatest flaw of this reincarnated body—the [lungs]—I had left behind far too many clues.

'I'm doomed.'

Rather than answer the Earthling's question, I abruptly shifted the subject.

'What about you, Kang Changho?'

I answered his question with one of my own.

'I have plenty of questions myself. Listening to all this, it sounds like you don't see me as merely some con artist anymore. You seem to think I'm some kind of monster...'

'_ _'

'If [Improvement] isn't the reason, then why don't you just kill the dangerous thing sitting in front of you right now? What exactly... are you trusting that lets you torture me like this without finishing me off...? Isn't this situation itself proof that I'm innocent?'

'_ _'

'And why did you drag Seonwoo Yeon-ssi into this? Was it simply because she was one of the Association employees who had some acquaintance with me? You sent an employee all the way into the room of someone you suspected of being a monster just for that?'

How could someone capable of doing such a thing possibly claim to be on the righteous side?

The blond figure—the archmage's new shell—twisted the corners of his mouth in disbelief, the metallic scent of blood hanging around him.

There was an Earth saying for situations like this: "The thief wields the club."

Since he was the guilty one here, I fired back in a sharp tone.

My purpose was to buy enough time to somehow invent an excuse by turning the interrogation back on him.

'Seeing Justitia here... I assume you went to see that Association employee again while I was unconscious.'

Every sentence I spoke was laden with the intention of changing the subject.

And yet, as I continued, I eventually reached a subject I genuinely wanted an answer to.

'Is that B-rank awakener still safe?'

I asked about Seonwoo Yeon's safety and fell silent.

A faint bead of cold sweat slid down my temple, which until then had remained dry and taut.

A few seconds later, the person responsible for this third kidnapping finally answered.

'You really do have a lot of questions.'

At first, I thought he intended to ignore every one of them.

A sense of unease crept over me.

Fortunately, the conversation soon continued.

'Do I look like I'm hesitating merely because I'm not using [Improvement] right now?'

Perhaps he was simply being sarcastic.

'Whether this hunter named Kim Gryeo is human or a monster—that isn't why I'm leaving you alive at the moment.'

'Ugh.'

'The reason I haven't turned that body of yours into a blue pincushion and am instead letting you flap your mouth like this... is simply because I have a great many questions of my own.'

'Eugh.'

No matter how consistently I insisted that I wasn't a monster, it clearly wasn't getting through to him.

While he was speaking, Kang Changho struck the blue spike lodged near my Adam's apple with his fist.

I tilted my head down with a rigid expression.

Kang Changho paid no attention and continued in an almost magnanimous tone.

'By the way, the Association employee is perfectly fine, so don't worry. I only sent someone to have Justitia brought back. That person's role from the beginning was to stay alive—so why would I go out of my way to hurt her now...?'

'Role?'

'Curious about that too?'

Perhaps I should have realized something was wrong the moment that mammal began acting so generous.

'Fine. Give me a proper answer to my question first, and I'll tell you as much as you want about Seonwoo Yeon's condition. Consider it a fair exchange.'

Then Kang Changho proposed an exchange of information and asked me a question.

'By any chance, do you know how a gate is created?'

Had Korea's third S-rank hunter always been this deeply interested in those otherworldly spaces?

After that, similar questions poured out one after another in the darkened room.

Dungeons.

Skills.

Items.

And monsters.

Anyone living in the age of the Dungeon Shock would naturally be curious about such things, scholar or not.

The problem was that every question Kang Changho threw at me rested on the assumption that the cause of the Gate incident was sitting right in front of him.

So even when he asked questions whose underlying principles I understood perfectly well, giving him a smooth answer was nearly impossible.

'I don't know anything...'

Thus, from beginning to end, my answer remained the same.

'I don't know anything.'

'You don't know?'

'I don't.'

Clank.

A sharp metallic sound rang out from somewhere nearby.

Kang Changho picked up one of the spare blue nails he had left on a nearby workbench and spoke.

'Exactly the reaction I expected. But if you keep playing dumb despite speaking Korean perfectly well, you're going to regret it sooner rather than later.'

Then, with a dry smile, that Earthling revealed a rather shocking fact.

'Haha. Actually, every one of the friends I met before you played dumb just like that—and they all ended up dead.'

So this man's friendships had already ended in miserable tragedy long ago!

Wait.

Something about that didn't make sense.

Because I...

'I didn't have any friends on Alphauin...?'

How could he kill beings who had never existed in the first place?

Cold sweat broke out over me as though I'd just heard some dreadful ghost story.

With my carotid artery compressed and a nail embedded in my neck, even an archmage's judgment had apparently grown dull enough for that statement to unsettle me for a moment.

But once I reconsidered it with a cooler head, I quickly realized that when Kang Changho said "friends," he couldn't have meant companions in the literal sense.

He was most likely referring to something broader.

A group.

Or perhaps...

A species.

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